“I can run on whatever night they want to run on,” said the popular three-time Cup champion who owns the half-mile dirt oval. “They can pick. We’ll run on whatever night they choose. We can make it work.

“If you can take the trucks and make them work here, the Cup cars, the Nationwide cars are not a stretch from that. It’s definitely feasible to do that. It’s just a matter if it’s something they want to do.”

he Camping World Truck Series races twice on Wednesday nights during the season — the other Wednesday race is at Bristol — as well as one Thursday night race (Kentucky). But NASCAR has yet to schedule either of its two top national series on any day other than Friday, Saturday or Sunday. It did have a Monday night prime-time Cup event when the 2012 Daytona 500 was rescheduled because of rain.

Tracks are typically reluctant to have a weeknight race because of the reliance on camping revenue as well as the ability of fans to get in and out of facilities while battling work traffic in metropolitan areas.

But at a track with the smaller capacity of Eldora (17,782 plus general admission hillside), a midweek event could be more feasible ­— it wouldn't need a weekend event to fill the seats.

Eldora had a capacity crowd for its second annual MudSummer Classic truck series race Wednesday night. While there were some empty seats in a couple of sections, attendance exceeded 20,000 and was better than last year with an increased number of people purchasing general admission lawn tickets that were capped at 1,500 for the inaugural event.

The track announced plans for a new infield media center, medical center and concession area to be built during the offseason. Stewart and his general manager Roger Slack said they even have someone willing to put an open-air dome over Eldora that would cover the track and allow a race even if it rains. The cost? $25 million.

So Stewart and Eldora officials are outside-the-box thinkers. Why would Stewart want something bigger than the truck series at Eldora? Maybe because skepitcs (admittedly, including this writer) have doubted they could do it all along, running a NASCAR national series event on dirt for the first time since 1970. They did it with just seven full-time employees.

“There’s just not a lot of people that would get off the safe spot, so to speak, as these guys (who work at Eldora) will,” Stewart said about his staff. “That’s what makes it fun working with this group.

“Having opportunities like this to do something that hasn’t been done in 44 years, that’s where you get excited about it. … There’s no dirt track in the country that’s ever pulled anything like this off.”

And maybe that’s why a midweek Cup or Nationwide race at Eldora makes all the sense in the world. Or maybe that’s just the mood following a great race with a great atmosphere.

Stewart’s teammate/driver Kevin Harvick, who admittedly is far from the best dirt racer, wants to race on a Wednesday night for the benefit of the crews who could really use a shorter season and more off weekends. He’s not sure any dirt track could do it.

“I’ve been pushing for Wednesday night races in general,” Harvick said. “I don’t know about Cup races on dirt. I don’t know that you would have the infrastructure and the things that you would need to have a Cup dirt race there. I think Nationwide and truck are definitely doable.

“But I don’t know if I see the racetrack paying however many millions of dollars it is for a sanctioning fee and making that up with 20,000 people in the grandstands.”

Kimberly Meesters, who oversees Sprint’s marketing program for the Cup series, said the company is often asked about major changes to the sport and a midweek race has never been discussed. They have not researched whether it would be something Sprint would want to see happen.

The TV networks also would have to be on board. NASCAR likely would want it to be a network event, but prime-time weeknights are valuable space.

Eldora, which has a handful of major events each year, can see what a NASCAR event can do for a facility. Slack said that 4,400 new accounts were opened last year for tickets to the truck race. He said all but 138 of those fans bought tickets to one of the races at Eldora this year.

The track, which sold out early for the truck race last year, was 5,300 tickets behind this year at one point during the sales process. Slack and his team promoted the event and enjoyed a successful evening Wednesday.

So now Stewart wants to do something more impressive. Stewart made it clear that it would be a privilege to have the trucks continue to race there. But he’s thrown the ball into NASCAR’s court for an even bigger race on any date NASCAR chooses.

“I don’t think anybody in short-track racing would be able to top that,” Stewart said of the potential for a Nationwide or Cup race at Eldora. “That would be the ultimate crowning achievement for a short-track promoter to pull that off.”